Mondays With Jimbo: Maryland Week Edition

Every Monday Florida State head coach Jimbo Fisher holds his weekly press conference to discuss the week's opponent, the previous weekend's film and whatever else he feels like talking about that afternoon. We cover it in a weekly piece called, "Mondays with Jimbo."

Jimbo Fisher stopped by on Monday afternoon to discuss what went wrong defensively and talk up Maryland a little bit. The Terrapins rank 25th in the AP poll and will attempt to upset the Seminoles when they visit Tallahassee on Saturday.

"Maryland, as you see, is a very good team. In every conference standing, they’re one or two in every statistical category across the board, playing very good football," said Fisher. "Very dynamic players on offense –quarterback C.J. Brown is playing lights out. [Stefon] Diggs is a great player – he’s catching balls everywhere. Their back, [Brandon] Ross is way up there and does a good job. They’ve got a good football team.

"Defensively, [Marcus] Whitfield has five or six sacks and six or seven tackles for loss. [They are] doing a lot of different things with coverages and blitz packages – playing great football. Special teams are doing a good job, got great returners because they’re dynamic and athletic. It’s going to be a great game. Got to get better this week and improve and try and win another conference game because it’s a double whammy game because it’s [also] a divisional game."

Fisher also took soom time to discuss some of what happened with Florida State's defense over the course of their game with Boston College. The Eagles jumped out to a 17-3 lead and amassed 200 yards rushing (397 total) while hanging 34 points on the Seminoles.

"We’ve got to continue to improve. I thought our defense did a nice job and we had a couple of knucklehead [moments] that we did with eye control," Fisher said. "Gave up a couple of big plays that were very simple, but when we watched the film I wasn’t as distraught as I thought I was going to be because it was only two or three individual things that caused the problem."

Asked to elaborate on what specifically caused the issues, Fisher continued on about fixing eye-control issues and problems with taking on blocks rather than trying to work around them.

"I said that after the press conference eyes are critical. You want to see guys make plays, but sometimes on defense you have to realize that you don’t make every play," Fisher added. "You have to have the discipline to do it and a couple of our situations came from eye discipline trying to be over aggressive and not staying with what we had to do and within the scheme.

"You'd rather say ‘whoa,’ than ‘giddy up.’ I say that all the time. When you explain to our guys, they saw it, they get it, they’re not selfish. It’s just natural on defense they want to make a tackle but sometimes you have to give yourself up for someone else to make it so you stay sound in what you’re trying to do."

A little more from Jimbo:

##- On the play of his young defensive backs:

"I thought they played well. We had very few issues in the secondary as far as guys and broken plays. Those were not their situations. They tackled well for the most part. I thought Jalen Ramsey played pretty well for the most part. P.J. (Williams) did a great job, scored on defense, got another pick – a great turnover there and then Nate Andrews got his first pick of the game. I thought those guys did a nice job."

##- On starting slow again last Saturday:

“We found out some things about our football team that you don’t always find out until big situations that I’m very proud of, in hindsight. We want to do better in the beginning and we want to start from (being) ahead and we’ll work on those things but we have found out a lot about our team. We can keep poised and we can stay as true to the process and keep playing and be able to make adjustments and still be able to win the football game.”

##- Telvin Smith won ACC Linebacker of the Week honors:

“Telvin was taking on blocks, was filling holes, did a nice job, just overall leadership and ability to play the game – he can play and play. Just a tremendous football player. I could go on and on about him. Great leader, instinctive, dadgum is he instinctive. When he pulls the pin and makes a decision he explodes at the ball carrier. Very good football player.”

##- And finally on Desmond Hollin, the JuCo transfer:

“He made a sack and I’m going to tell you what, took on blocks, played physical, played well at the point – when we got him in there he did a really nice job of helping us adjust and shut things down.”

“[He just needs] reps. He’s going to play more and more. He’s earned that right. Last week and a half of practice, he’s really started coming on. Understands the techniques and is playing physical. I think has a chance to be a very good player.”

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